My Epic Take Back the Night Public Service Announcement

*Note: I use swear words in this post.  Given the subject matter, I would find it more inappropriate not to.

And so, in an effort to continue my recent streak of writing about events at least two weeks after the fact (a trend which I hope will not continue indefinitely), today I shall regale y'all with the my epic tale of deceit, laughter, treachery, and ultimately, redemption.  I call it: Street Fight! (Subtitled: How Two Greasy Dudes Lost Their Street Cred Forever).

Not long after the departure of my siblings-in-law, AH and I were delighted to be able to show a good buddy of ours (the same buddy whose wedding we went to in NY back in October) around Paris for the weekend.  Crepes were consumed, photos were taken, and alcohol was consumed on the street (because hey, when you're in Paris, you've got to take advantage of the anti-brown bag policy).  After our Crepe-consuming, we decided to head over to the Marais (you know, home of the gays, Jews, and insanely over-priced boutiques) to meet said friend's boss for a drink.  As consuming alcohol in public is no longer novel for me, I had chosen to abstain.  Thus, when we arrived at our intended destination, I offered to walk to the corner trash can to toss out the empties.  And that's when things got...interesting.

Two greasy dudes (let's call them Tweedle Asshat and Tweedle Dickface), 12 pack of Heineken in tow, were loitering on the corner.  As is the wont of this particular breed of crunchy-headed miscreant, they began cat-calling.  Despite being a relatively sheltered Midwestern girl, I have, in my recent adult life, become fairly desensitized to this level of ass-hatery.  I proceeded with my typical policy of ignoring the dumb jerks and going about my business.  Dumb jerks proceeded to step up the cat-calling into some fairly crass insults.

Now, in hindsight, it's hard to tell if I would have reacted the same way in America, which was to give them the rudest hand gesture that I could think of (which is probably not what you're thinking; a French friend once made the mistake of revealing the real bazooka in the arsenal of rude French hand gestures, and I put it to good use).  In France, when I'm in situations where I'm not inclined/able to carefully think before I act, I tend to use facial expressions and gestures to make my point (thus did I prevent rude beyotch from cutting me in line at the boulangerie yesterday.  Turns out the American disapproving glare, while perhaps not quite as effective as French version, gets the job done just fine).  If I had full command of the language, would I have asked them, firmly but politely to stop?  Yeeeah, probably not.  My mother and father instilled in me a healthy appreciation for manners, but they somehow failed to instill the skills necessary to suffer fools who were persisting in foolery of such magnitude.

And this is where the exchange took a turn.  As I turned to walk away, Tweedle Asshat sidled up to me, whispered something incomprehensible in my ear, and grabbed my butt.  And then everything slowed down.  Because for one split second, with his hand where it was, I felt like a small, scared little girl.  And I will hate this man forever for making me feel that way, brief though it was.  I say "brief" because, while I did not magically transform into Xena: Warrior Princess (kind of like I had always hoped I would in a scenario like that), I did transform into a version of myself completely devoid of reason, without any goal but to tear Tweedle Asshat a new asshole.  I flew into a complete blind rage, elbowing him in the chest, turning around, and unleashing a shrieking spew of obscenities that would have made Quentin Tarrentino blush.  He was still close, so I shoved him again.  And then Tweedle Asshat stepped his Asshatery even further by punching me in the face, breaking my glasses in two.

I swear, when he punched me, this is the next thought that went through my head: "If I'm going to punch him back (and I really, really wanted to), I'm going to need to put down my purse to get a good swing in, in which case I run the risk of Tweedle Dickface coming over and running off with my bag, and I really don't want to go through the hassle and expense of replacing my passport." And then- fight or flight, it's real thing, man- I was suddenly terrified of what would happen next, and I ran back to the bar to grab my would-be knights in shining armor.  Of course, by the time AH and my friend had reached the corner, Tweedle Asshat and Tweedle Dickface had taken their beer and run.

Whilst AH ran off to do his manly duties, I stood dumbstruck, the two halves of my glasses in my hands, sobbing while a total (well-meaning) stranger was lecturing me on the affects of PTSD, and telling me that if I was having flashbacks or nightmares in 6-9 months, that I really needed to see a therapist.  What I could not seem to tell Earnest Stranger was that I had been punched in the face less than two minutes ago; I wasn't really in a place to be thinking about 6-9 months from now.  After AH and our friend returned, disappointed that long dreamed-of but never appropriate ass-kicking moves were unable to be satisfyingly deployed, we decided to head into the bar for a drink.  If it had been any other night, I would've gone home.  But my friend was in town only for the night.  Tweedle Asshat and Tweedle Dickface had already broken my glasses.  I wasn't letting them ruin my night.

And so that's the epic tale, and here's the Take Back the Night PSA portion of this post.  While I sometimes get slightly personal in my musings on this blog, I generally try to stick to pretty light-hearted material (art mockery, etc.).  So I hemed and hawed about whether or not this was an appropriate post to make, especially since it doesn't meet my criteria of being specifically related to my experience as an American living in France.  Because here's the truth: every girl you know, no matter where she lives, has gone through shit like this.  She might not have had the misfortune to encounter that special breed of idiot who wants to raise it to the physical level, but she has been cat-called, sexually objectified by strangers.  And, like me, a lot of women accept that this behavior simply comes with the territory of owning a vagina, and we become desensitized to it.  But we shouldn't be.

Thinking back to that night, there's a good chance that had I not responded with a rude hand gesture, Tweedle Asshat would not have followed me, and it would have just been one more incident of men yelling lewd things at me that I thankfully (the only time I'm thankful for my poor French comprehension, actually) only partially understand.  But I'm not sorry that I did.  I'm not sorry that I walked to the corner- 20 feet from the bar where my husband was- alone.  And I wouldn't be sorry if I had been spending the whole evening alone, in a rougher part of town.  And, even though I was bundled up in a wool coat, I would not be sorry if I was in a short dress and plastic stripper heels.  Because it's not my job to be sorry; it's theirs.  If leading Take Back the Night marches during my university years taught me anything, it's that there needs to be less jaw-flapping about women behaving in ways to protect themselves and their precious virtue and more about how we need to take a hard look at why there are still men who treat women as targets and not as people.

And so I've decided to tell this story for two reasons:

1) These stories don't get told often enough.  And I know why: they're unpleasant to tell.  But when these experiences get swept under a rug, it feeds into the myth that they're a normal part of life for a woman, like death and taxes.  But these things should not be inevitable.

2) I may have gotten punched in the face, but I at least have a story to tell.  Tweedle Asshat and Tweedle Dickface have a story to tell now, too, except it's about the time they punched an unarmed, unaccompanied woman and broke her glasses.  In that respect, I think I got the better end of the deal.